the world as we saw it

Abyssinia (Southern Frontier)

Until very recently our knowledge of the peoples of the lower omo was almost entirely derived from the reports of a dozen or so travellers, explorers and military adventurers, of various nationalities, who visited the area in rapid succession between approximately 1890 and 1910. The information they provided about local populations was fragmentary and, when considered as a whole, highly confusing. One traveller would report that he had found a certain group living in a flourishing condition in a place where another, passing through a few years later, could find little or no trace of human occupation. Different travellers, furthermore, would frequently use different names to refer to the same group, with the result that the ethnographic maps of the area soon became littered with a confusing variety of ethnic labels.

Living in a country until now unknown to the white man and to most of the surrounding blacks, it is easy to understand why their way of life is so close to that of animals. This savage tribe has detestable tendencies and bestial habits.

On July 4 we found ourselves without guides in such a bushy country, that we were obliged to make five long marches in the bed of a river knee-deep in water the whole time. As our boots were wearing out, we were forced to walk bare-footed; but our spirits ran high - Lake Rudolf was near, and we were to be the first to reach it from the east….a little bit more pushing, and our joy was complete! After more than a year’s wandering in all sorts of country, and under most diverse circumstances, we found ourselves at the goal of our ambition. We reached Lake Rudolf on July 14 1895, and camped among the Reshiat, a tribe living at the north-east corner of the lake. The expedition had been a hard one, but we had achieved all we had set out to do and more.

Donaldson Smiths (Explorer) Addressing a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London in January 1896.

The Arbore collected in groups about the cornfields, but they paid no attention to our repeated friendly calls for a long time. It looked very much as if we were going to have war, until eleven men approached the camp, just as it was getting dark, bearing branches in there hands. They were to frightened to come very near at first, so, taking my interpreter, i went over to where they were standing. One of the eleven run away, although there were only two of us, but the other ten men stood there ground, and waited until i came up to them and handed them some grass. They told me they were only poor people of the Arbore, who had been ordered to guard the durrha fields, but they would carry the news to the villages that we were friends.

Two villages were very near together, and surrounded by tall stockades, and from the gates of these thronged hundreds of worriors adorned with war paint and feathers. We quickly formed a square under a large sycamore tree, calling loudly all the time that we wished peace. The natives completely encircled us, coming nearer and nearer every second. Already within easy shooting distance with there bows and arrows, they were leveling there weapons at us. It seemed beyond the realms of possibility that we could avert a fight. Every instant each one of us felt that we would be riddled with poisoed arrows. But all the time there were old men rushing from worrior to worrior holding them back just as they were on the point of shooting.

They make excellent bags, baskets, and rope out of the bark of saplings, and a plant resembling the aloe, extracting the fibers by chewing. Many of there ornaments are very well made. Brass bracelets wrought in many designs and highly decorated, ivory tobacco pouches with leather tops suspended around their necks, bells, finger-rings and wooden combs for there hair. They also manifacture earthenware pots and pans, wooden vessels, bludgeons pointed at one end with a heavy knob on the other, and decorated with rings of iron.

The people themselves are of a dark-brown color (some of them almost black) and only average about five feet five inches. They have rather poor physiques, and there features are irregular and very ugly, but they do not have the large lips of the Negro.

My suspicions regarding the natives were well founded, but fortunately for us, they did not attack before letting us know exactly when and how they were coming. Soon after dark we could hear war-whoops and the sounds of the war-horns proceeding from the three big villages. Undoubtedly the natives were going to attack us, but we were not hurried in our preperations for defence. The noises in the villages kept up all night, and to our relief the morning dawned without the enemy having made any advance. They were still shouting and blowing their war-horns while Dodson and i were eating our breakfast, but now the sounds negan to come steadily nearer.

An interesting bit of information I gained on the Omo Eiver was that a new illness had arrived last year in this neighbourhood. From the description the natives gave me of it I had no doubt left in my mind that it was sleeping-sickness to which they referred, although I had no opportunity of seeing a case. I am afraid that if this news is true, the banks of the Omo River will fast become depopulated, and such tribes as the Reshiat, Bume, Kerre, and Marsha, will soon cease to exist, as no precautions are likely to be taken. I am at a loss to understand how this cursed insect could have reached this neighbourhood, as it only follows the course of great rivers and lakes. I suppose that it must have come in the wet season via the Sobat and swamps of the Nile, as it is already infesting the upper waters of the latter river. The Abyssinian in charge of the post of Karo was ill

The Kerre live on the banks of the Omo about Karo, while in the hills to the east are two small tribes called the Banna and Ba&hada. All these three tribes are in the habit of strangling their first-born children, and throwing the body away. The Kerre throw it into the river, where it is eaten by crocodiles, and the other two leave it in the bush for hyenas to eat. The only explanation they give of this custom is that it is the decree of their ancestors. | Talking to Abyssinians about this afterwards, they said that they had tried to break them of the habit, but found it impossible. They also declared that it was only illegitimate children who were treated in this way. How- ever, I think that they were mistaken on tMs point, as I asked most carefully., and was told that for a certain number of years after marriage children would be thrown away, and after that they would be kept. The number of the first children who were strangled, and the period of years during which this was done, appears to be variable, but I could not understand what regulated it. There was one point, however, about which they were certain, and that was that the first-born of all, rich, poor, high and low, had to be strangled and thrown away. The chief of the Kerre said, " If I had a child now, it would have to be thrown away," laughing as if it were a great joke. What amused him really was that I should be so interested in their custom. When I first heard of the custom amongst the Kerre, I conceived the idea that the crocodile here might be held in veneration, as it is by at least one other tribe I have met, and that this might be a sacrifice to a deity whose visible form took the shape of a crocodile. However, I asked most carefully about this, and could discover no connection between the crocodile and this custom. It just happened that the river was handy to throw the babies into, but if they were on a journey or inland they would be thrown into the bush.

I stopped a day at Karo to give the camels a chance of grazing, as the camel-grazing was good, and mine were now miserably thin. During this time I learnt about several curious customs from the chief of the Kerre. The men are completely nude. Many of them wear a false back to the head, which gives them a most curious appearance. The hair is plastered with mud, and pulled over a shape or pufi fitting on the back of the head. When the coiffure is complete it looks like part of the head. The whole is surmounted by ostrich-feathers, or long wires poked into the false back, and standing upright.

Having arrived at the junction of the Cmo with the Mako on the 12th August, Bottego's party had to do a further ten days' marchup the right bank of the latter river before they could find asuitable crossing. This incident illustrates the extremely isolated geographic position of the Mursi, which caused their territory to be bypassed by every visitor to the Lower Omo except Bottego during this f i r s t twenty-year phase of exploration - and indeed, with the exception of an Italian Amy patrol In 1939, ever since. For i f their route was from the Ethiopian highlands to Lake Rudolf, travellers would keep either east of the Mako, like Leontieff and Bourg de Bozas, or west of the Omo, like Bulatovich, i n order not to become hemmed i n by these two rivers. Those travellers who, like Donaldson Smith, attempted to work their way north from Lake Rudolf, on the other hand, were also deterred by these rivers and undertook no exploration of the land between them. The same considerations must also have insulated the Mursi from the turmoil caused mong, the groups to the south of them by the Arahara occupation (military posts of the emperorMenelik II were reported both at the northern end of Lake Rudolf and among the Kerre between 1900 and 1910) and by the British "pacification" of Turkana, between 1914 and 1926.

The Kerre men eat together, instead of each man eating with his family. I believe also that the women eat quite apart from the men, but of this point I am not certain. A large dish of pulse is cooked, and the men sit round, each helping himself from the common dish, and eating with a wooden spoon, instead of with the hand, as is customary amongst even civilized natives, such as coast Swahilis and Arabs. The men sleep at night on raised platforms in the open air, several on each platform. The floor is covered with
stalks of millet, and these platforms are situated in the village close alongside of the huts. The women sleep in the huts, and are only joined by the men if it rains. They have a few cattle, and the milk of these they sell one to another in exchange for millet-flour, at the rate of about one measure of milk to twice that measure of flour,
Neither the Eeshiat nor Kerre disfigure the ears, as is customary with most East African tribes, and to a lesser degree with the Bako.

A young Boran girl named ola, asked permission to accompany the caravan, as she said that both her parents were dead and she was very poor, and on her promising to make herself useful in every way, in bringing wood, cooking, etc, i told her that she might come along with us. Her only garment was a short skirt of rough cloth, but her upper part of her body was nearly concealed by huge chains made of porcupine quills, coffee grains, plaited reeds, and a very few beads. Telling her to throw away her old skirt, i gave her a piece of clean white American sheeting,which covered her whole person, and with which she seemed greatly delighted, strutting about among her people and causing much envy. She told me that she did not mind were we went and that sooner or later she would find a husband among some of the tribes we passed.

A Donaldson Smith (Explorer).
Diary entries regarding his encounter with a Girl from the Boran tribe.

The Mursu, (Mursi) whom we found on the banks of the Omo, had escaped the raids of the Abyssinians, and were in a most flourishing condition. After we had shot a couple of hippos for them they became most friendly, and brought us much food, consisting of durrha, or sorghum, lentils, beans, maize and dried tamarinds. I bought a small tusk or two from them at first to start trade; but when I discovered a long line of ebony-like forms bearing about a ton of ivory upon their shoulders to my camp, I had to cry a halt, as it was impossible for me to transport more ivory than I had with me.

The natives were bent on showing us there teeth however, and only replied by gesticulating wildly and threatening us with there weapons. The youth with the javelins now acted one of the funniest little scenes in pantomime i have ever seen. He was well built and graceful savage, and absolutely naked exept for a small piece of sheepskin that hung from his neck over his back. around his ankles, knees, and arms were rings of sheepskin, with the white wool attached, and contrasting well with his black skin, while a large white ostrich feather waved to and fro on his head. He run first to one side and then to the other, and at each turn would give a jump, swinging his body completely around in the air before he alighted. Every dash brought him a little nearer until he got to within thirty yards of where we stood. Then planting his thrusting spear fiercely in the ground, he raised his javelin to throw it at us. He was such a fine picture of native prowess that i did not wish to kill him, but his javelin would very likely have hit one of us, and i was forced to do something out of protection, and ordered instantly one of my boys, who was carrying a shot-gun, to give him a charge of small shots. On the report of the gun, the native gave a spring into the air, doubled up, and run away as fast as his legs could carry him. Neither he nor his companions stopped running before we lost sight of them in the dense bushes at the foot of the mountains.

A Donaldson Smith (Explorer).
Diary entries regarding an attack by an unkown warrior.

Two Watu Boran acted as guides , and one of these began to make love to Ola. (a native girl who had joined the caravan after loosing both her parents). I oversaw the flirting and was highly amused at the manner in which they went about it. It consisted almost entirely in tickling and pinching, each sally being accompanied by roars of laughter. They never kissed, as such a thing is unkown in Africa.

There weapons consist of bows and arrows, javelins, and a few long thrusting-spears. Only a few of them use poison on there arrows. The iron point of the arrows are either barbed or spear-shaped, with a shaft devoid of any feathers.